Spontaneous Combustion

by Bobby Hutchinson

  “Linda’s still in surgery,” he said in a choked voice. “She’s—” His jaw was clenched hard as he struggled to hold back tears. He stopped and wiped a hand across his face. What he wasn’t saying hung like a sword over them.

  “The doctor says she’ll live, but they aren’t sure yet if they’ll have to do a hysterectomy.” Sean swallowed, and it was obvious he could barely speak. “She wanted this baby so much. And now, if—”

  “Don’t even think it,” Shannon said. She and her mother wrapped their arms around Sean in turn, and Caleb awkwardly patted his back. When the women released him, Patrick gave his brother a hard hug.

  No one said anything. Shannon could feel fear like a dark presence surrounding them in the neon-lit room, and she knew they were all praying silently in the endless interval before a doctor walked in.

  He’d obviously just come from the operating room. A mask hung from his jaw and his green scrubs were spotted with blood.

  Linda’s blood. Shannon felt sick, and utterly terrified.

  “Linda’s going to be fine, Sean—we didn’t have to perform a hysterectomy,” the doctor said immediately. “We were able to remove the damaged portion of the fallopian tube and reconnect it. We repaired the uterus, so future pregnancies shouldn’t present any problem. Linda won’t be waking up for another hour or so, but you can sit with her, Sean. She’s in Recovery. Come with me—I’ll take you there.”

  Mary started to cry, and Caleb wrapped an arm around her. “We’ll go home now, son,” he said to Sean. “We’ll be back a little later, when Linda’s able to have company.”

  When they were the only ones left, Patrick turned to Shannon. “I haven’t had any breakfast. How about if we find the coffee shop?”

  They took the elevator back to the lobby and headed for the hospital cafeteria.

  Neither of them said anything until they’d filled their trays and sat down at a table in a secluded corner.

  Patrick lifted his sandwich and then set it down again. “God, that was scary. Sean came close to losing her, didn’t he?”

  Shannon found her appetite had disappeared, even though she hadn’t eaten yet today. Her eyes filled with tears and her voice quavered. “Yeah. Very close.”

  “I never really thought about the risks of pregnancy when Janie and I had our kids. I think I’m glad I didn’t.”

  “Me, too,” she said. “If you had, you might have deprived me of my beautiful niece and nephew.”

  “No way. I can’t imagine my life without them.” Patrick took a bite of his chicken sandwich. “You ever talk to your boss about your concerns with Forester? Because now that I’ve met him, Shannon, I have to say I agree with you. On the surface he comes across as a straight up guy, but there’s something not quite right about him, although I can’t put my finger on exactly what it is. So I’ve decided to do what you asked…pull some strings and do some checking on him. I have a friend who runs a private detective agency in New York. He owes me a favor.”

  Shannon had started eating her sandwich, as well, and now she almost choked. She swallowed hard and reached for her water.

  “No. Patrick. Don’t do that. Please, that’s not a good idea anymore.”

  “What d’ya mean?” He frowned at her. “Last time we talked about him, you practically begged me to find out more about him. And now, when I figure you actually have a point, you don’t want me to? What’s going on, Shannon? What’s changed?”

  “Nothing. Everything.” Damnation, there was no way she could confide in Patrick. She trusted her brother implicitly, but she’d promised she’d keep John’s secret, and she couldn’t break that promise. “Listen, Patrick, you have to just trust me on this. Don’t go digging. Leave things the way they are. Take my word for it—John’s absolutely a good guy. Promise me you won’t contact your friend.”

  Patrick studied her with narrowed eyes. “I get it. You’ve gone and fallen for him, haven’t you, kid?”

  “No.” She knew right away the denial had been way too vehement. “Well, maybe. A little. Nothing terminal. I need, umm, time,” she stammered. “On my own with him. And I don’t want you interfering, okay? I know now that I was way off base asking you in the first place.”

  Her brother gave her a dubious look. “Now, why doesn’t that comfort me? My kid sister falls ass over teakettle for some guy I don’t trust, and wants me to promise I won’t try and find out anything about him? Shannon, that doesn’t make sense. Not when you had doubts yourself just the other day.”

  “But I don’t now, honest. Let me handle this my own way, Patrick. Please?”

  He was facing the doorway, and now he looked over her shoulder, his blue eyes suddenly turning cool. “Well, it looks like your own way is on his way over.”

  Shannon twisted around. Sure enough, John was weaving his way through the crowded tables. He stopped behind Shannon and put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Patrick,” he said with a friendly nod.

  “Hi, John,” she said, smiling up at him. “Sit down.”

  He did, and Shannon saw that he’d showered and changed into fresh jeans and a white sweatshirt. There was a slight swelling on his jaw where she’d punched him, and she longed to lean over and press her lips to that place, but she could imagine what reaction Patrick would have to that.

  Her protective big brother would be on the phone to his private investigator friend within the hour, asking for a full report on John by tomorrow morning. The guy probably wouldn’t be able to find anything—after the search she and Linda had done, Shannon figured the FBI went to great pains to protect their operatives—but John didn’t need that kind of interference. She hadn’t had a chance yet to really think about all that he’d told her, but she did know she believed him. Believed in him.

  John had taken the chair between her and Patrick. “I tried your cell number, Shannon. It wasn’t responding. Is Linda okay?”

  “I saw a notice that cell phones aren’t allowed in hospitals, so I had to turn it off. Linda had a very bad time—scared us all half to death. But she’ll be okay.”

  “I’m glad.” John glanced at Patrick and got to his feet. “In that case, I should be going. There’s a meeting I’m supposed to attend.”

  Shannon got up, too. “I’ll walk you to your car.” That was well done, and on an almost empty stomach. She cast a longing look at her half-eaten sandwich and reached for John’s hand, aware of a decided, stiff-lipped chill emanating from Patrick.

  Better rescue her cowboy and get the hell out of Dodge before the sheriff tied him up and used hot irons to extract the truth.

  ONE THING FOR CERTAIN, Patrick wasn’t his new best friend, John decided. In fact, he had the distinct notion that Shannon’s big brother had a real urge to pop him one.

  “See you,” John said in his direction.

  Patrick gave a curt nod and returned to his sandwich.

  “Linda had an ectopic pregnancy—you ever heard of that?” Shannon was saying as she hurried him away.

  “Nope. I’ve never been around pregnant women much.” Much was a gross overstatement. Apart from seeing swollen ladies on the street, he had no knowledge whatsoever of pregnancy or its complications. He listened closely while she explained the finer points of the condition.

  Jesus. The details made him feel queasy and light-headed. He felt incredible admiration for Sean. Faced with a similar emergency, John wondered what he would have done.

  It didn’t take a moment’s thought to figure it out, though. Through ignorance, he’d probably have let the woman die. John shuddered as an icy chill shot up his spine. There was so much he didn’t know.

  “Lucky your brother knew what to do.”

  “Yeah, well, they touch on situations like that one when you take advanced first aid. If you’d actually taken fireman’s training instead of just pretending, you’d know all that stuff.”

  They’d reached the lobby. Shannon seemed to know all the staff, and now one of the nurses at the admitting desk waved an
d called to her.

  “Hey, Shannon, I heard about your sister-in-law. I’m so sorry about the pregnancy. But I’m glad she’s gonna be okay.”

  “Thanks, Miranda. And your sister just had a baby. Congratulations.”

  Miranda beamed. “Thanks, she had a girl, I’m so happy to be an auntie.” Her expression changed, and she said, “Sorry, Shannon. Linda just lost her baby, and here I am gloating about being an aunt.”

  “Don’t feel that way, not for a moment. Babies are a miracle. Sean and Linda will try again. How much did your niece weigh?”

  “Almost twelve pounds. She’s a bruiser. Hey, she’s in the nursery at the moment, getting some drops in her eyes. You wanna come up and see her?”

  “Can we, Miranda?”

  John could hear the naked eagerness in Shannon’s voice.

  “Sure, I can sneak you in. Everybody knows who you are.”

  “I’ll just head out to the car—” John began, but Shannon had hold of his hand. She tugged him along to the elevator.

  “Just come in here,” Miranda said when they got off. She led the way into a small room, empty except for a hospital bed and a straight-backed chair. She left, and in another moment came in carrying a baby wrapped in a yellow blanket. She placed her carefully in Shannon’s arms.

  “I’ll be back in a minute. I’ll just tell the staff what’s going on. It’s against the rules, but I need to show her off.” She hurried out.

  “Oh, John, just look at her. Oh, Lordy, isn’t she precious? Look at her little hands, these tiny fingernails. And her eyelashes…she’s got the longest eyelashes. Oh, she’s adorable.”

  John kept his distance while he peered at the baby. It was incredibly tiny, and adorable wasn’t the precise word he’d have used to describe it. The kid had a red, scrunched-up face, and her eyes were closed so tight they looked glued shut. She had a pink toque on her head, which seemed a little too small because scraps of wild red hair stuck out from under the edges. John thought she seemed pissed off at the world and exceedingly strange looking, but he wasn’t about to say so. He figured a comment like that could earn him worse than a pop in the jaw, judging from the awed expression on Shannon’s face.

  Besides, he didn’t exactly have personal experience with this, so he had nothing to compare the kid with. Maybe they all looked this way at first. How the hell would he know?

  He did know for sure that being this close to something that small and new made him feel uncomfortable and out of control. It was the same feeling he’d had the Sunday he’d met all of Shannon’s relatives, as if he’d been parachuted into a foreign place where he didn’t know the language or the customs.

  He’d lived his life in a certain way, a way that was familiar to him, where the rules were clear-cut. There was him and there was Naomi. There was no guesswork about who had to make decisions or take charge; he’d been doing all of it since he was nine. There were no prayers over Sunday dinner, because there was no Sunday dinner. The idea of Naomi going misty-eyed over a baby was laughable.

  These O’Sheas were a different tribe. The men knew how to save their women’s lives. An emergency like the one today brought each and every family member racing to the hospital, even when there was nothing concrete they could accomplish.

  He looked at Shannon’s face and a shiver wound its way down his back.

  She was perched on the edge of the bed now, cradling the baby against her chest. There was a rapt, intent look on her face as she stared down at the infant, an expression of yearning and tenderness and absolute enchantment, and he felt shut out, excluded.

  He had an overwhelming urge to drag her away from here, to blatantly use the powerful sexuality between them to distract her, to make her forget this flannel-wrapped, minute bundle.

  All morning, ever since he’d left her, he’d been trying to figure out how this thing between them would play out, where the end would be. His time in Courage Bay was determined by how long it would take to complete the investigation and—he hoped—take the perps into custody. Then he’d be heading back to New York, back to his own life.

  In his deepest soul, John considered himself a loner. In New York he was anonymous. Sure, there were restaurants he frequented where the waiters knew him. He spoke to people at his gym; he played games of handball with guys he knew or sometimes with guys he didn’t. He met the same people jogging in the park and said good-morning. He had occasional dates with an ever-changing, yet similar array of sophisticated women.

  None of those women had ever gotten under his skin—or inside his head—the way Shannon O’Shea had done. To the best of his knowledge, none of them lusted after a twenty-inch-long, blanket-wrapped bundle. Those women wanted a good time. They talked politics and Broadway shows and fashion, gossiped amusingly about people they knew. He’d never met any of their mothers or brothers or in-laws or uncles, and he’d had no desire to do so.

  Shannon was as different from those women as John was from the O’Shea family. The Sunday he’d spent with them had been as much a mystery to him as visiting an ashram in India might be. Sure, he knew people who got married, had babies, bought houses, lived some version of the American dream, but it had never been something he thought much about, because from the time he was a small boy, his entire life had been centered on survival.

  As he grew older, he’d become adept at it, until now he thrived on danger. He got an adrenaline rush out of getting in and out of life threatening situations. Was he in one now?

  “Look, John, she’s yawning.”

  He watched Shannon’s lovely face instead of looking at the baby, and he was taken totally unawares when she suddenly plopped it into his arms. “Support her head with your arm…that’s the way.”

  Utter terror gripped him. “No—hey, take it back, Shannon. I don’t know how—I’ve never—here, take it back, please.” Frozen in place, he didn’t dare move to hand the bundle over. Shannon was laughing, and she’d moved several steps away. John was too afraid to walk, certain that if he moved at all, he’d drop the baby. There was nothing to do but hold on.

  The infant squirmed and stretched, tiny hands reaching up and out. Its eyelids opened and it looked up at him with navy-blue, long-lashed eyes that looked ancient and wise.

  He felt as if he’d touched a live electrical wire. This wasn’t an it. He was holding a living, breathing human being. She was already a person; size had nothing to do with it. She was helpless, she was totally dependent on him at this moment, and he didn’t even know how to hold her properly.

  The enormity of the thing overwhelmed and terrified him. He took one slow, precise step, then two, and carefully passed her off to Shannon as if the baby were a live grenade. He was sweating. He had to get out of here. He had to clear his throat before he could even talk.

  “Shannon, do you need a ride home? Because I’ve really got to go now. I have a—a meeting.”

  She barely looked up. “You do? Oh yeah, you said you did.” She nodded, her attention centered on the baby in her arms. “Thanks, but I’ll stick around here. Patrick will drive me home. But I want to get together with you. There’s still a ton of questions I need to ask about that stuff you told me this morning.”

  “Sure. Absolutely. Whenever.” His hand was on the door, and the urge to bolt was overwhelming.

  “Maybe later today?” she suggested.

  “Sure,” he said again, but the truth was he wasn’t sure at all. The way he felt right now, if he could hop the next plane back to New York, he’d be on his way to the airport. He wanted the safety of knowing what the hell was going on, even if it was just dragging Naomi out of another bar. That was clear, straightforward. Here, nothing was. Around Shannon and her family, everything kept shifting. He was in over his head, and he didn’t know how or when it had happened.

  She walked over to him and stretched up to plant a kiss on his lips. “Thanks for coming, John.”

  With the baby between them, the kiss was a perfunctory effort, but just being close t
o her muddled his thinking.

  “You want to come over to my place tonight?” She must have seen something in his eyes, because she added hurriedly, “Just to talk. We’ve both got work in the morning. We can make it an early night.”

  “Good thinking.” He knew she’d expected something more from him. They’d spent the previous night locked in each other’s arms, and part of the morning locked in violent confrontation. He knew he was letting her down in some fashion by not taking another step ahead, but the way he felt at this moment left him no room to maneuver.

  “See you this evening.” He opened the door and stepped out. It closed behind him. He strode down the hallway and impatiently punched the elevator. When it didn’t immediately respond, he headed for the stairs, taking them two at a time. In the parking lot, he unlocked his car, slid in and expelled the breath he’d been holding.

  Freedom, at last.

  In seconds, he was accelerating out of the lot, onto the street. He headed for the highway exit and got himself on the freeway heading south toward L.A. He needed speed and distance. He needed to get a long way from Shannon O’Shea, get the smell and the feel of her out of his system.

  What the hell was going on with him, anyway? He felt as if somebody had taken the top off his head and stirred his brains with a spoon. He’d made up his mind at least once before that getting involved with her wasn’t a good idea, so what had he done?

  Seduced her. Smart move, Johnny boy.

  Well, maybe the seduction was more a mutual thing, although he hadn’t exactly been the soul of restraint in that whole episode, had he? And it wasn’t as if one night with her had cured him, either. It had made him want her more. How was that possible?

  He couldn’t remember lusting after any woman this much since he was sixteen and in lust with Fleur. She’d done a great job of introducing him to sex, and he’d always been grateful to her for that. She’d taught him how to please a woman. He’d thought himself in love, but looking back, he recognized the feeling as lust.

  He lusted after Shannon, too, but it wasn’t just sex he wanted with her. He wasn’t exactly clear on what he did want. Friendship? And sure, sex. Conversation? And sex. Camaraderie? And sex.